The Martial Arts Club

Dream recorded 09/07/11 at 5:30am

The local hang-out spot is a wrestling/martial arts club. It's a massive indoor gymnasium with tall bleachers on opposite sides. The gym floor is covered with mats. There is a large entryway, with an office you can get to by climbing some stairs.

Everyone goes here to hang out after work or school. Generally, however, only guys participate in the wrestling or sparring, while girls merely watch and cheer during the matches. Girls who participate in sparring are looked down upon by the people who run the place.

Well, I enjoy sparring (in my dream, that is... in real life we only did choreographed "forms" in our wushu class, never sparring). I'm hanging out at the gym with Jeremy K, Sang, Jon, and Luke from high school. We're all scheduled to be in sparring matches at different times. I'm the last on the list, and I plan to use my wushu staff. We all cheer during each match. I spend a lot of time talking to Luke.

It finally gets to my turn. However, right then, all the lights flip off, the music stops and everyone is leaving the building.

I spot the lady who has the most power over running the club and stop her as she's walking out. I tell her I was supposed to have a turn at sparring and got skipped. She looks at me with disdain, and says she does not care. I ask her if I can at least get my belongings; I had left them all inside everywhere because I had thought I would be in a sparring match. She waves me back inside with a scowl.

It is evening and getting dark outside, and I stumble around inside the dark gym. I'm really annoyed at how misogynistic the people who run this place can be. I manage to find the light switch and turn on the lights.

The place is a mess, with trash strewn about everywhere. I gather up my things, alone and feeling bitter, and also try to clean the mess up a bit. I pick up a lot of wadded paper and cotton puffs and throw them into the trash. They won't all fit, and keep falling out of the trash bin.

Suddenly, I realize the light switch is like a lever in a video game, where it only stays toggled for a small period of time before switching itself off again. The lights then turn off without warning, and I'm left in the dark gym alone again. Everything is starting to feel extremely creepy. I fumble to turn the lights back on, but as I go to grab my gathered belongings, the lights go off again.

While groggy and attempting to record this dream in my journal, I ended up forgetting what happened after that point. The dream must have gotten much more frightening, however, because I woke up with a start with my heart pounding.